He looked at the trees in the park and wondered how their limbs moved with no breeze and wondered why all the houses in those tight little neighborhoods flanking the park had suddenly become tombstones that were gray and chipped and flecked with lichen. Or had they always been like that? A squirrel raced by his boot and Slaughter was certain it had been laughing at him. He saw a bee. A big fat bumblebee. It hovered in the air before him and Slaughter was thinking how bright were the yellow bands encircling its body. He could see its eyes and the careful smirk on its little bee mouth and the wings, moving so fast they buzzed… but if he concentrated, they moved very, very slow and then he was aware of how many hairs the bee had. Black hairs. Yellow hairs. Bulging sacs of pollen on its legs that looked to be the size of fanny packs. When the bee moved, it left a trail of pollen behind it that shimmered like golden fairy dust.
“Pay attention now,” said the bee and flew off.
Hey, asshole.
Slaughter looked around, not sure of anything now but knowing from experience that nothing was real and everything was real and you couldn’t fight it: you just went with it.
Hey, asshole.
He looked and Dirty Mary was squatting in the grass before him. She looked good. He felt a burning need in his groin. He wanted to get up and climb on top of her but he could not move.
Oh, aren’t you just something? Fucking asshole motherfucking biker piece of shit. Who do you think you are? Spent your life robbing and fighting and murdering and dealing drugs. Nothing but a criminal. A lowlife criminal and now… ha, ha… now you think you’re righteous, you’re walking the straight and narrow, on a holy mission. Don’t make me laugh. Did you think Black Hat won’t punch your ticket in the end?
You know Black Hat?
I serve at his side.
But you’re dead.
She laughed and unbuttoned her blouse and showed him her breasts. They were full and round, the nipples pink and jutting. He saw the tattoos on them—the roses on the left one and the dragon on the right climbing up to her sternum.
You can’t have them. He won’t let you.
Who?
You know. Call his name. To call the names of the dead is to summon them and to give voice to the darkness is to make it real. You get it, asshole? Do you GET IT?
She squeezed and worked her breasts in her long fingers, teasing the nipples until they stood as hard as push pins. When she took her hands away there was another tattoo and it covered both breasts:
Slaughter began to shake and shiver as the hot sweat of fevers broke open on his face. That word. That symbol. That word-symbol. It meant something and he knew it. It meant the most awful things and Dirty Mary was trying to tell him but he couldn’t hear and she kept shaking her head as she rubbed her breasts.
I died. Then I went down the rabbit hole and into the darkness and I saw him there. He asked about you, John. Oh, the evil that men do. You’re one of his favorites because you have absolutely no respect for human life. You like to kill.
No, I don’t.
But you do.
Only when I have to.
She began speaking in what seemed dozens of voices at the same time, all of them berating him and shouting at him and telling him things he needed to know, but were incomprehensible.
Really, John. You have to concentrate. I went down the rabbit hole and I met the Mad Hatter and he said tweedle-dee, tweedle-dee, why is a raven like a writing desk and right now he’s with that Little Injun and he’s telling him riddles.
Shut up.
I won’t. Not until you remember.
Then Slaughter did. In his memory that was so real it shut out everything else he saw a couple of the boys from the 158 Crew: Sean Cady and Butch Vituro. They were both long dead now but that didn’t seem to matter and why should it?
Allentown. Yes, Allentown, PA. The 158ers were going after a witness in a drug trial involving Ringo Searles, then-president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Disciples. The rat’s name was Boyle, a drug dealer who had fingered Ringo’s complicity in a tri-state heroin trafficking operation.
In under a minute Sean popped the lock on the back door with a little L-wrench and a shot of graphite. They found themselves in a kitchen that stank of fried foods and garbage. It was dark, but Slaughter could see light in the next room, hear the TV blaring out the canned laughter of a sitcom. He moved noiselessly in there, saw Boyle in an easy chair, his back to him. Cady moved forward, cool as a body in a freezer, his eye on the top of Boyle’s pink head. He got right up behind him and brought the butt of his Glock right down on the crown of Boyle’s skull. It made a meaty thud and Boyle fell forward, sliding from the chair.
Cady turned him over with his boot. Boyle was out cold.
Satisfied, Cady went to the window. There was a shade drawn. He pulled it up and down twice. Then he went back to Boyle. A lolling human slug, Boyle spilled out of the bathrobe in too many places. Fat bulged out of the robe like an inner tube from a tire.
Butch came in with the tools.
“Okay?” he said.
Cady nodded. “Just fine.” He turned to Slaughter. “Now you see how we joint ‘em.”
Butch set down the leather sack of tools. Next to it, Slaughter set out a stack of black, heavy-duty plastic garbage bags.
“Never take off your gloves,” Cady said, his eyes narrow in his square-jawed face… except it wasn’t Sean Cady now. It was Black Hat who was the Mad Hatter who was Chaney the Skeleton Man. The clownwhite face, horribly pitted and scarred as if by acid, the eyes like pink mince. He wore a high top hat and on it was a placard with the following:
“Dat’s rule one,” he said, imitating the voice of a tough hood. “When ya do a guy, ya always cover yer tracks. Ya take yer gloves off fa one minute, rub yer eye, scratch yer balls, whatever, dere’s dat much more chance yer gonna touch something. Ya leave a print behind, fuggetaboudit. Dey’ll get ya. Dey always do.” He looked at Slaughter, winked. “Dost thou comprehend this, biker boy?”
Butch nodded. “That’s right, Johnny. This here’s messy work, but if you do it right, nobody ever has to know.”
He gave each of them a blue plastic disposable apron, the sort meat cutters wore. The Mad Hatter took out his Glock again, threaded a silencer on the end. He left the room, turned on some more lights. “In here. Come along with me,” he called out. “Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
“Sure,” Butch said.
Slaughter took the bags, the tool bundle.
Butch took Boyle by the legs and dragged him effortlessly down the hall into the bathroom, hefted him into the tub. The Mad Hatter stripped the shower curtain free, tested the strength of the rod, nodded with satisfaction that it was steel and it was screwed firmly into the wall.
“We’ll make a fine and secret work here,” said he.
Slaughter and Butch slid a plastic bag over Boyle’s head. He moaned and stirred slightly. The Mad Hatter went over to him, stuck the muzzle of the Glock up to the bulge of his head and pulled the trigger—pop, pop, pop—as he whistled Gounod’s “Funeral March on the Death of a Marionette” which was impossible to hear, Slaughter knew, without conjuring up images of Alfred Hitchcock. Boyle trembled and went still. The bag was essential, Butch pointed out, in that it helped to contain the bone chips and brain matter that otherwise would’ve sprayed around the room.